Heavy machines are poised to grind into motion tomorrow and turn a piece of Revere history into rubble.
A Revere landmark for 105 years, Congregation Tifereth Israel will be demolished. A project described by the city as “veteran-preference housing” is slated to be built on the site with commercial space on the ground floor.
City officials will mark Tifereth Israel’s departure from Revere’s landscape with comments and recollections, including ones scheduled to be made by Ward 2 City Councilor Ira Novoselsky, who has a long institutional memory of the synagogue’s role as the spiritual home for the large Jewish community that once lived around it.
Shirley Avenue was the epicenter of a tightly-knit neighborhood that has long since changed but is still fondly remembered by local residents. For people who grew up in the 20th century on Shirley Avenue, the synagogue was as much a compass as a place to worship.
Growing up in Tifereth Israel’s shadow provided a constant reminder about cultural history and the challenges and opportunities afforded by immigration.
Living in a neighborhood centered on a religious institution was an American fact of life for many people over the age of 50 today. Other houses of worship across Revere provided the same sense of orientation that Tifereth Israel offered. The synagogue is about to be only a memory for people who know it, but other worship places in Revere and neighboring communities have seen new leases on life.
Congregation Tifereth Israel made its home a century ago in the former First Methodist Church of Revere in much the same way the former Congregation Anshai Sfard in the center of Lynn is becoming the new home of Iglesia Evangelica Luz y Vida.
The church’s Spanish-speaking worshippers are slowly restoring the sprawling brick building on one end of Lynn Common into a faith home for Central American immigrants. Iglesia Evangelica’s congregation knows what Congregation Tifereth Israel members knew a century ago: Worship places are built with wood and brick but it is people who bring meaning and purpose to a building.
It is the marriages, funerals, social gatherings and religious customs that transform a synagogue or mosque or church or any religious gathering place into a focal point for a community. It is that ebb and flow of generations through a place of faith that defines it as a guiding light for young people forming life values; for new families seeking support and guidance and older people seeking solace and respect.
Congregation Tifereth Israel will fall to the wrecking ball but the spirit contained in its bricks and mortar has been carried to all parts of Revere, maybe the world, by people whose lives were shaped and nurtured by the faith work undertaken in the synagogue and other worship places like it.
